


Perspective

by nfra3711



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nfra3711/pseuds/nfra3711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Kenya, Zaizen was unreachable. To Zaizen, Kenya was unavoidable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unreachable

To him, Zaizen was unreachable. He had only known him ever since the younger boy started enrolling in the same middle school he was in, so perhaps, maybe, that didn’t clarify anything of his judgment. But if there was any word in his mental vocabulary that he could describe the boy with, if there was one, then that was it.

Zaizen wasn’t actually the kindest, or the most hype or fun person Kenya had ever met. If anything, it was the total opposite. Zaizen was rude, blunt and brute and heart-achingly honest. One would say that wasn’t necessarily a bad aspect, but for Kenya, who was slightly more than just ‘close’ to him, who spent more than insignificant amount of time with him, he had lost count on how many times Zaizen had offended him, of both where Zaizen actually meant it or otherwise; and Kenya could not, could never tell when Zaizen was pulling an attempt of sarcasm or when he was actually criticizing him, because Kenya didn’t know, had no idea how he would figure it out.

When seen from behind an outsider’s insight, perhaps the title of ‘Genius’ that had always been bestowed on him was a little— if not much, overrated. Zaizen never seemed to be anything much, never actually stood out as he would rather sit back on the bench and do whatever the thing he always did with his phone. The lack of time he was involved in an actual match wasn’t going in his favor, either. It wasn’t exactly a rare sight to watch people who didn’t know, who looked down upon him, getting gracefully humiliated and kicked straight in the arse for thinking that they could bring down the Zaizen Hikaru down. Kenya had pondered about it at times, if Zaizen actually enjoyed misleading people into believing that he had not much of a capability. That, or he was just secretly a closet sadist that took pleasure on seeing guilt and suffering in people’s paling face. Either which, it really wasn’t a good sign.

Even though Kenya had spent much more time with him off in the tennis courts or places surrounding them, the fame and name Zaizen had nonchalantly earned off the rackets and balls and nets weren’t for laughs, either. He was gifted, both in brains and talents. He would often skip classes, wonder around the rooftop only to blog about how boring the classes were, or how annoying and pesky everyone was in the whole school. He would make crude remarks at class when asked by a teacher, just for the hell of it, and especially when his mood wasn’t actually smiles and sunshines. He would outsmart his classmates and peers, just because he thought they were dumb and deserved the embarrassment. But then he walked in during exams, slouched down on his seat and looked as if he had zero to negative interest on getting anything right on that question paper. But there he went, always on top of his classes, despite the obvious issues in manners and attitude. It was as if he was attracting bad rumors to come to him.

Right, it wasn’t actually a nice, clean reputation he had given to himself, but if anything, he was nothing to be messed around with. Zaizen was cunning, and if he couldn’t get into your nerves using words, then he would sure as hell find another way.

Kenya had thought, perhaps Zaizen wasn’t actually the rightest person to be hanging out with. If anything he only gave off a terrible vibe, and if he wasn’t, he would be busy making remarks of how bad and horrible and just all in all disgusting Kenya’s everything was. It was as if he was treating him as a complete rubbish, and it wasn’t like Kenya was enjoying the shitty treatment.

But there he was, tailing after Zaizen every time. Popping up in front of his doorway in the morning more often than not, flailing his hands and waving at him from the class’ windows when it was lunch time, and then sliding in again when classes were over, putting his arm around the other boy’s neck and dragged him to practice. He would ask him what he wanted for lunch, if he wanted to go anywhere after practice, if he wanted anything for his birthday, if he had problems with friends or families or anything and anyone because Kenya wanted to make sure that Zaizen knew he was there for him, despite all circumstances. And it was indeed the truth. Kenya had wished that there would come a day where Zaizen would trust him, would be comfortable enough around him that he would talk about anything that wasn’t tennis, or school, or the ‘stupid people’ in his class, or how terrible this one teacher’s wig was. Kenya didn’t want to know about those. He wanted to know about him. About what he liked and his interaction with his family and what he actually did spending all those hours alone on his own in front of the computer screen. He wanted to know what else he liked other than red bean soup and crappy music (at least Kenya was honest about it). He wanted to know where he got all his piercings, where he bought his accessories, what he did to his hair every morning, if he wanted any pets, if he wanted to go somewhere when school was out. He wanted to know what he thought about the future, where he wanted to continue studying, what kind of jobs or dreams he had in mind; He wanted to know about _him_.

But of course, Zaizen was a closed door. Sealed and shut tight, no cracks nor openings; no chances. As much as Kenya had tried, he would always pull one of his signature revolted looks every time Kenya directed their conversation to about him, and proceeded on leading the talk into something bad, something negative that Kenya possessed in his personality. And Kenya hated it, when Zaizen did that. But it wasn’t as if it was Zaizen who loathed the older boy; it was Kenya who insisted on keeping on trying, again and again and again everyday until Zaizen was visibly sick of it. It was Kenya’s fault, and he knew he had to stop pretending that he meant anything at all to him.

But yet he pursued. Because if he wasn’t worth any speck of dust in Zaizen’s presence, Zaizen meant everything to him.


	2. Unavoidable

To him, Kenya was unavoidable. He had only known the older boy ever since he had enrolled in the school; the school he thought was stupid and dumb and all kinds of pathetic. Zaizen knew he could do better, was worth better, he knew he could get in a much better school with a much better reputation had he bothered. But it wasn’t like he regretted his decision. The school was fine, at times, and it was just in his favor that everyone in the school was as dumb as the school’s principle, making it painfully easy for him to ace classes even without paying attention to what the dumbasses calling themselves teachers were saying, or even without attending at all. What he regretted was that he brought himself to agree to give the tennis club a chance. He should’ve known better— no, he knew that every single one of its members was a complete muttonhead (and he really never expected anything else, seeing that the captain was the biggest fool). But somehow, they convinced him to stay, he let them convince him to stay. He still thought it was the most terrible decision he had ever made his entire short span of twelve years of life.

Only, sometimes, it wasn’t as terrible as he took it to be. Kenya was a weird person— and even ‘weird’ was underrated. He was a complete alien. When Zaizen first stepped in the tennis courts, his initial impression was that that certain dyed-hair upperclassman was, for the least, the most ‘normal’ of the bunch. He didn’t seem to be the type who’d scream random English words at the most inconvenient times, he didn’t seem to be the kind of person who’d run so fast he forgot to stop before slapping himself straight in the face with a gate pillar. He didn’t seem to be someone who was so obsessed with the whole idea of ‘speed’ that he had to, he must do everything in an inhumane speed else he would start weeping like the sissy he actually was. He was an alien, and Zaizen could never for the love of hell understand him; not that he had any interest to affiliate him with such a creep.

However it bothered him, how it always bothered him how Kenya never seemed to be able to walk out of his life.

Or perhaps, it was Zaizen who never let him walk out of his life. It could only be one or the other, couldn’t it? And his ever so gifted brain graced him the obvious answer, but he knew deep inside that it wasn’t that.

The older boy was loved by more or less everyone. He made group projects feel enjoyable, he made lunch breaks fun and entertaining and all kinds of good things and definitely not dull. He made every single little after school hang-outs worth the time and of course, the laughs. He was one of the reasons why tennis practice was never plain and predictable and boring (even though, much to Zaizen’s demise, every single one of the regulars contributed to the nonsense). Whenever he was around, things were just never quiet (but then again, this _was_ Shitenhoji).

There was one thing of Oshitari Kenya that made Zaizen couldn’t help but keep his eyes on him, either voluntarily or not. It was that he stuck around. No one had ever stuck around Zaizen before, especially after realizing how much of a huge prick he was. He would demean him, say bad words at his face and sometimes even insult him on purpose. Why he did that, he wasn’t quite sure, as Kenya never actually did anything wrong enough to offend Zaizen. But he did that anyway, and every time he could see the pain in Kenya’s eyes. Zaizen could see it, Kenya wasn’t happy, Kenya was upset, and more than anything, he was upset with him.

There was a strange sense of achievement in Zaizen’s chest whenever he could see that tiny glint of anger coming from his senior’s face. It felt as if he had accomplished something, that upsetting Kenya meant the world to him, that pushing him away was the most righteous thing to do.

And yet the next hour or the next day or few, Kenya came back, face bright and filled with joy; as if nothing happened, as if Zaizen hadn’t crushed him straight in his pride. He would continue talking to him, dragging him to practice, share his lunch with him even though Zaizen knew how possessive Kenya could be when it came to food. Kenya would ask what he was listening to (Zaizen knew Kenya thought his music was shit, and Kenya didn’t even need to say that), but he would sit down next to the young boy and ask if he could listen. He insisted to know what his blog was so that he could read his posts, and often would be the very first person to respond to his updates (though, sometimes it was Kenya massively complaining about the content, not that Zaizen minded, that was what he looked forward to the most, if anything). He would spend the weekend crashing on his room, doing whatever, and would ask where he liked to go, would always go with him doing things that were usually out of the range of his interests. Zaizen would ask what his reasoning was, and Kenya would answer there was none.

He wasn’t sure if he liked the attention, but sure as hell, he didn’t want it to go, either. Perhaps, that was why he kept Kenya around.

Perhaps the idea of finding out how much Zaizen could go on before Kenya would finally give up on him was the most interesting thing in the world.

Or perhaps, Zaizen was waiting, patiently waiting, stubbornly waiting for Kenya to be able to finally pull him towards himself, to bring him out of his dull world and into his that was more colorful, more entertaining and definitely more ridiculous. But somehow, the whole image didn’t seem at all bothersome to him.

After all, Kenya was a widely open door, who would just welcome everything and anything into him, who would greet whatever it was he was facing with a smile and joy and a whole bunch of positivity. Having a stain like Zaizen across that door would just put it off the balance, the harmony, it would bring the perfect tune into a terrible dissonance.

And if he could live with being the dissonance among the team, he definitely couldn’t do the same with Kenya. So he had to put up with being vague.


End file.
